We don’t want Promises – we want Action/Results

20 Jan 201906:22am IST

20 Jan 201906:22am IST

Basil D’Cunha

che Din”, “Money in our Account”, “Goenkar ponn” are catchy slogans, very nice to hear, but we now know better. We want Action, we want results.NOW.

Our CM is sick, but because we are so hungry for power, we just let that poor man continue as CM leaving the people in double jeopardy? People don’t matter –Power does.. Goa is going to the dogs(literally and otherwise), but politicians do not care. After all they are there, to look after their own interests –people are only important at election time.

We want job oriented education –not age old rote methods that rob our children of qualities of confidence and leadership. Not too long ago in our beautiful State 10,000 Commerce and Arts (with economics) graduates applied for 80 Accountant Jobs for vacancies in Government Departments. Guess what -? Not one qualified in the written test. Our graduates are not job oriented i.e. not trained to face the commercial world.

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We want the Education provided to be in sync with what Industry is looking for not just shlokas for children to rote learn and they then cannot find jobs. Our’s must be the only country in the world that Ph d’s and post graduates apply for Peon jobs. Is our Phd degree worth the paper it is written on?

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Let’s encourage our children to learn to run small business- so they can grow to look after themselves and their families. Banks must reach out to help small entrepreneurs so numbers of our people looking for jobs is reduced. It appears Banks are looking for Adnanis Ambanis, Mallya’ ,Modi’ etc to grant huge loans and then some of these so called Big names run away, leaving the country looking like fools and the Banks bankrupt.. We then spend millions of Dollars fighting in Courtstrying to get these economic fugitives back to pay up their Loans or face prison terms.So far not one is back or paid up his dues.Ache din indeed.

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We rather have our Teachers tell us about our Great Leaders of the past and motivate them to follow in their footsteps then spend thousands of crores to build statues for the benefit of the crows or to brag that we have the tallest statue in the world. Statues do not provide jobs , feed the hungry or motivate.

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Almost every street in Goa is littered with Garbage. We dare to call our city a Smart city-.. Where and when are more plants like the Garbage Treatment Plant atSaligao coming up ? Promises and more promises .In Marmagao just in front of the MPT Hospital a huge Garbage dump is created.Do the authorities know what they are doing?Are the patients who come to this Hospital with one Problem, go home with another?

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We are asking Airlines to make announcements in Konkani when landing in Goa.Is this Goenkar ponn? or is –Goenkarponn bringing the Formalin gangsters on trial and hanging them for putting the lives of Goencars at cancer risk and death. No government authority has said anything about finding these culprits .Were they hand in glove?

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Goenkarponn is teaching tourists who come from all over India that beaches are meant for enjoying nature and not drinking and throwing the empties on our sands. Teaching them that we cook and eat in eating houses and not on fields.

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In spite of setting deadlines ( 19th December 2018, )to make Goa an open defecation free State (ODF)by We are still far from achieving the Goal. Ours is a small state, if we cannot solve this problem, we continue to accept that we permit our people to live with disease at our door step

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Encourage sports – there is money for the poor here and fame for the country. We have had so many shining examples of our young people in India and from poorer states excel in Sports. They have made us proud and now are financially secure. Even in our so called favourite sport football we have just a single Goan in our Indian team.

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We need Traffic signals at all major intersections. The lack of these results in road rage /accidents/deaths and avoidable congestion/pollution..

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WE need parking (paid) –Our Municipality in Panjim it appears cannot action a similar system that works very well in one part of the city and does not work in the other part.At least with the money collected from Parking fees, they can use that to provide Garbage bins all over the city,.

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We have built a huge parking building in Panjim that is hardly used and where there is a crying need there is no similar facility. Is there any Research done before committing huge resources and creating white elephants?

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The people have to contend with dog and cow menace. Dogs or cows seem to have reached everywhere On the roads, beaches and even in our bus Terminals. A news report suggest that there are an estimated 35 million stray dogs live in India and according to World Health Organisation (WHO) India faces about 18,000 to 20,000 cases of rabies every year.The basic reason there is such a huge population of dogs is due to open garbage places all over.Any permanent solutions on the drawing board ? 0r let rabies and dog bites continue to ravage our people.

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The cows seem to be looking for busses to take them to abattoirs, as nobody seems to want them. But there are no abattoirs to house them. The Government has banned cow slaughter or sale of cows .It is nice to bring in Laws but what about ensuring they can be implemented without creating more problems. Road accidents take place, beaches are rendered filthy ,people have to jostle with cows to catch a bus , and we call ourselves a Tourist destination. Film actor Naseeruddin Shah . In a recent interview, has said “that cows are more important than humans in our country today. There is complete impunity for those who take law into their own hands. In many areas we are witnessing that the death of a cow is more significance than that of a police officer,”

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We wonder why numbers of foreign tourist arrivals have dropped. Women don’t feel safe in Goa due frequency of molestation, murders and rapes. There is wide publicity abroad of these incidents. So, people think this is not a very safe place to have a holiday. Also, women like to wear Bikinis on the beach –but our men think that is an invitation to molest and rape them. Free access to cheap alcohol and drugs only makes for more crimes.

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We want toilets for our girls when they go to School? Can you give them this facility with water provided? Or are you going to tom tom about having provided thousands of toilets? Don’t throw statistics at us, that are meaningless. Nearly six out of the ten toilets built by the government under the Swach Bharat Abhiyan Scheme don’t have proper water supply, a government survey has found. Another report says that over 21000 Girl Government schools have no toilets for girls.

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We want a fair policy for our Farmers so Loans are disbursed humanely and their crops get a fair return for their hard labour. Enough of suicides have taken place on this count. We want Banks to do their jobs as Banks and not be subservient to Politicians – so they do not get defrauded with People like Nirav Modi , Mallya etc who have political connections.

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Laws when promulgated should be implementable and not add further to problems. Law says that Cows should not be slaughtered ,nor sold. So what does the farmer do when his cows become old and unproductive? What they do now is just leave them loose and cows are to fend for themselves. Did the Government foresee such problems ? Where are the abattoirs? What about the millions of Jobs lost and export business hit badly in this area. Yet Government says that the job scene has improved. In UP alone 3.5 million jobs have been lost due ban on slaughter. Is this a way to target a particular community?

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We want all religions to be permitted to practice and propagate their faith as enshrined in the Constitution. Those taking authority in their hands by vandalising sacred shrines and harming people who worship MUST be punished and not secretly be supported.

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We want the Dalits given their rights and not treated as second class citizens. We are in the 72nd year of Independence, Statues are erected for poor Dr. Ambedkar –but his principles enshrined in the constitution are buried deep in the ground.

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We first want our trains to run well and on schedule and without accidents. not Bullet trains that the poor people cannot afford. Our priorities must be first to uplift the poor not false emblems of prosperity.

There is work to be done. There is action needed. We do not want another 5 years of Promises.